The US arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has sparked condemnation in pro-regime media in Iran. The raid has also raised hopes among protesters who have been demonstrating against the Iranian Islamist regime for the past week.
But independent Middle East analyst Alexander Atarodi notes that the resistance in Iran has been going on for a long time and has many causes.
What lies at the heart of it is a combination of the failures that Iran has experienced in the last two years, not least the war against Israel, which was devastating.
The war showed
Erika Holmquist at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOI) also highlights the war this summer as a watershed.
It was perhaps the last thing the population still thought they had - we don't have democracy, we don't have a functioning economy, but at least we have security.
But the war showed that perhaps there is not the security they had thought.
Alexander Atarodi points out that this applies both inside and outside Iran.
When the deterrent disappears, as it did in connection with the June War, the regime loses legitimacy. Not only towards the domestic population, but also towards regional actors.
“Wait a minute, we thought Iran was this strong, and now it turns out it was like this.” It is very much a crisis of legitimacy.
“Almost impossible”
Speculation is also growing around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - could he and others in Iran's leadership suffer the same fate as Maduro, or Syria's former dictator Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia?
However, neither Atarodi nor Holmquist believe that the US or Israel would do anything in Tehran like the raid in Caracas.
"Israel still has the capacity to strike from a distance. But not that type of operation, kidnapping important people from Tehran. I think that is almost out of the question," says Atarodi.
More protected
It also depends on geography. The Iranian capital is much more protected than Caracas.
And the Iranian regime is well established.
Dissatisfaction with the regime is widespread in society, but at the same time the regime's control is extensive, explains Holmquist.
A significant number of the elite make big money from the current order, and they are unlikely to relinquish power without a fight.
But since Khamenei is 86 years old, there has long been discussion about what happens when he, for whatever reason, disappears from the picture.
If it happened now, in the middle of all this, it is very difficult to say how the entire apparatus would react, says Holmquist.
